After learning that a woman dies in birth every minute around the world and that 90% of those births are preventable, former model Christy Turlington felt she had to do something. So, instead of just throwing money at the problem (which isn't always bad), she set out to create a documentary, "No Woman, No Cry" (see the trailer by clicking on the movie's title), showing the oftentimes fatal path women take as they struggle to obtain quality healthcare. Or even healthcare at all -quality or otherwise.

Turlington took her cameras to Bangladesh, Guatamala, Tanzania and the United States. She was determined to highlight the fact that the US is in 41st place (today we are number 39) regarding keeping women alive in birth. (Even with our techno-medicine obstetric care, women continue dying at an alarming rate.) And as bad as it is here, it is horrific elsewhere.

"Turlington chose these countries because they have the best chance of achieving United Nations Millennium Development Goal Five: reducing the maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters and achieving universal access to reproductive health."

Besides the film, which is being shown at various festivals around the world, Ms. Turlington Burns is also working on her Master's Degree in Public Health. Nice to know her committment hasn't ended just because the editing has.

I very much look forward to seeing this movie when it becomes available to the rest of us.